Phantasm 2: In the Shadow of Iniquity (three)

Chapter Eight

Geyser Ritual

Thomas Paine.

Laura found that the complex Minarthan society fascinated her, something she hadn't felt for a very long time. She could see how rich their culture was, how their very civilisation was shaped around their world. That did not necessarily account for their nature, though. They were remarkably curious creatures, inquisitive, always wanting to learn.

That was the reason the anthropologists shared so little with them. Malcom and the others understood that to give them something would only serve to increase their interest; they would not be satisfied, they would always desire more and wouldn't understand when it wasn't given to them. The anthropologists were concerned about interference in their culture, sharing technology, because they feared it would create a dramatic change within their society which might prove irrevocable. To introduce new concepts to them ran the risk of irreversibly damaging what the Minarthans had, and because of that, of damaging who they - as a species - were. Their culture was a legacy of music and dance, plus the little they could create themselves without it crumbling to dust in their hands. They were underdeveloped and simplistic, but because of that, in their own way, they were beautiful. Almost enviable. The anthropologists did not believe that the sacrifice of beauty for knowledge would be worth the price.

But what the anthropologists likewise didn't understand was that they were changing them anyway. It seemed apparent that they had already interfered with the Minarthan culture, though they themselves didn't realise it. This world was home to the Minarthans, it was the anthropological presence that did not belong. Humans weren't the natives here. As soon as they had set foot on Minarth they had interfered with the life-cycles of all those who resided there by introducing the barrier stopping animals from moving between areas. By its very nature, observation and study meant that non-interference wasn't possible - the Minarthans reacted to their world, to their environment, and suddenly humans were a part of it. The spaceport, the small settlement, they were all only minor infringements on the world but they all impacted the Minarthans, no matter how minutely. They had changed the ecology, they'd changed everything that was normal. They had already interfered.

And they weren't truly attempting a study of the Minarthans, rather they were trying to make them seem more familiar. They were watching them rather than observing them, comparing the Minarthans to life as they already knew it. They were trying to take something utterly foreign and make it human.

Laura knew this because she had taken the time to connect to the network of minds and slip inside Malcom's thoughts, touching his experiences and memories, gaining valuable insights into the Minarthans, learning how to understand their "stick" language and discovering how they interpreted human speech. She had seen the extent of anthropologist-Minarthan interaction in everything Malcom remembered. When they had first arrived and begun to interact with them they had not understood the possible impact it might have and the anthropologists had introduced the Minarthans to Commonwealth history, and later to human history, teaching the Minarthans about themselves. They did not see any harm in showing another race what life was like on other worlds. The Minarthans, though, became obsessively attracted to human culture more than any other. As the anthropologists were humans, the people they seemed to most admire, the more they learnt the more obsessed they became with humanity itself. They immersed themselves in what they learnt, assimilating all the knowledge and incorporating it into their lives, into themselves. They began to base all their interaction with humans upon history, religion and human culture. They assigned themselves special names for when they communicated with the anthropologists - Adam-Eve, Dickens-Bronte, Einstein-Curie. The anthropologists were not as alarmed by this as they should have been; in fact, it was the opposite, they were pleased as the contexts of the names they had chosen revealed the Minarthans to be hermaphroditic with an individual Minarthan possessing both male and female sexual organs, a fact they hadn't known and were intrigued by. Soon afterwards, however, they became more cautious, introducing their non-interference policy. This was when the business of disguising themselves in invisibility cloaks started, studying their society from the inside without fear of detection, enabling them to learn about the Minarthans while supposedly not polluting their culture.

But none of that changed the truth. The Minarthans idolised their human counterparts. They were the first people they had encountered and so they would always idolise them. The anthropologists had interfered with their society from the very beginning without ever realising it.